Philips screws are awful. They strip if you look at them wrong. Flatheads should only be used on thumbscrews just in case you need a little extra torque from a screwdriver.
I work on electronics and woodworking and Phillips are the utter worst of both of them. The thread lock in computers makes them easy to strip when unscrewing. The resistance of driving them into wood makes them guaranteed to strip when screwing. Fuck them.
The big issue I see with people driving Phillips screws is that they don't use a large enough driver size. Computer screws for example are Phillips #2 and I've never had an issue with them stripping.
Could be that it's not a Philips but a JIS. I didn't even know that JIS existed until a couple years ago. The shape is close enough to Philips to mostly work but make it super easy to strip.
Maybe I'm just being lucky but I've never experienced screws stripping anymore since I've started getting better tools for myself.
And in woodworking it can also help to pre-drill a hole using your smallest drill, before screwing a screw in. This also prevents the wood from cracking.
I've also seen wood screws that have some lubrication pre-applied.
We had our 20 y/o deck repaired and stained last year. I was chatting with the overseer about what he was going to do and the topic of screws came up; he said he was going to use Torx, and only ever used Torx anymore - I just about cheered.
I'd been losing hope in humanity lately, but little signs of sanity like this, professionals finally getting rid of the hell-bits that are Phillips heads, lifts my heart and gives me hope.
These days, all but the cheapest outdoor-grade screws in the US are torx, generally with a bit thrown into the box that, while cheap, should work fine for a few boxes' worth.
I work at a big box hardware store, and I can confirm that almost all deck and structural screws are moving to torx. (much to the older generations dismay)
I've heard that was more of a European thing, but the only two serious contenders are Pozidriv vs Torx for screws (and hex vs Allen for bolts).
I just checked my local hardware store's website, and out of the 176 kinds of 4/4.5mm screw boxes in their inventory, 74 are Torx, 55 are Pozidriv, and 38 are Phillips (ew).
Either Torx or Pozidriv is fine when used properly, however most DIYers don't understand the difference between PZ and PH and end up stripping their heads. Also it's much harder to use the wrong-sized bit with Torx than PZ.
So yeah, Torx wins in just about every category and other heads only get manufactured to appease old people and penny-pinchers.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a philips or slotted deck screw. I have and have purchased many boxes of these things and they've always been nearly 100% Robertson. Is this a US thing?
Flatheads should only be used on thumbscrews just in case you need a little extra torque from a screwdriver.
The only other legitimate use I've seen for flatheads is on wooden boats, where you'll be gooping the head up with tar for waterproofing. Since you'll eventually have to scrape it back off again to get to the fastener, you want a simple geometry that's easy to clean.
Square (Robertson) drives are actually great too. Better than Hex/Allen, but Torx is the most reliable, and the most German. Phillips can take a long walk off a short pier.
Square is nice too but square/Phillips is a good damn lie. Because the Philips side of it doesn't work well enough so it is still just a square but with extra slots
They're mostly just used for tamper-proof screws for things like bathroom stalls so people can't take them apart as a "prank" or whatever. The screw driver bits tend to break easily, which is usually worse than the screw stripping.
Fuck this. Torx, Hex, square drive are all positive engagement. Phillips is literally designed to cam out. Slotted is just the first head type to have existed because of how easy it is to make, but is far inferior to every other type.
A good square bit for my impact is a lifesaver as an electrician. Pretty much every conduit fitting set screw can take flat, Philips, or square. When you're reaching out one-handed from the top of a ladder, you really don't want to cam out all the time.
If you've tried to do any large amount of work with slotted, you'll know that it belongs in Mental Disorders. I'll take Six-Lobe/Torx over phillips or slotted any day of the week.
Yea but fuck the security torx screws. Also hot take, but underrated screw goes to tri-wing/Y. They'd be great screws if they weren't security screws as well.
Also hot take, but underrated screw goes to tri-wing
Is that a hot take? Everyone I've ever mentioned them to who knows what they are immediately starts shit talking both them and Nintendo for making us buy a screwdriver for one set of devices in our lives
It's the "grandpa has been using slotted all his life so it can't be bad" reasoning. I can't think of a single use case I'd want slotted or even philips, if I've got a choice. Torx or bust!
If you're having trouble with Torx, buy better screws and bits. There are so many terrible screws around. The difference between a deep well fitting head and the cheap trash is massive.
Most of us are dealing with screws that someone else installed, though. Can't really control the fact that the manufacturer decided to save .5 cents per units by using cheapass screws that strip if you look at them.
If you're having trouble with Torx, buy better screws and bits.
Last year I needed to do some hardwood construction outdoors. On the advise of a carpenter I ordered some high quality stainless steel Torx screws online. They don’t sell these in the consumer-oriented DIY store. They were awesome, much harder than the cheap screws, that would easily bend when driven into hardwood, much sharper as well and if you buy a box of 100 or more it comes with a bit which fits perfectly. So much easier to use than the overpriced crap from the DIY store.
slotted screws are all fun and games, but if they're ruined...you will never get them out. I coursed these screws. Eventually they got the dremel treatement.
Temper proof torx makes me lol, because almost every bit set I own includes them.
If you break it off you will most likely leave some behind, which will significantly reduce the mating area because you cannot insert the bit fully and may lead to stripping the screw.
the only slightly justifiable use of slotted is something like the face plate on a light switch or power outlet, where it doesn't have to be particularly tight and it's nice you can remove it in a pinch with a fingernail or dime.
.. but really if someone came and replaced all of mine with torx I can't say id complain, so its not like they're good in that use case.. just less awful
I don't think I've ever heard that fastener called an Allen bolt, just the tool (Allen key). I've generally heard them called hex sockets heads. Maybe it's a regional thing?
That's not true when working internationally, since it can have different names in different nations. In Italy is Brugola, in Germany Inbus and in other places it has other names. Everyone understands what a hex key is though
Some claim to have stripped Robertson screws but to be fair, the metal used and amount of torque the peson applies is the biggest reason for problems.
Phillips heads were supposed to solve the over torquing problem, but everyone didn't listen to standard specifications and didn't bother using them as they were meant to be made and used. The Philips head was supposed to slip once the correct torque was applied. Unfortunately, this positive benefit became a negative. With poor metals and a mismatched driver bit to screw head along with not using the screw head that was meant for the specified torque demands, the Phillips screw became known for stripping.
Trying to implement non overtorquing feature to the square bit and you will find how similar it will look to the Phillips head.
Right now, Torx is the best at not stripping, but good luck if the screw is overtorqued. Eventually, the cheap metal gives out with the screw head, or bit, snapping off.
Fuck large format torx that are exposed to the element. I just weld a nut on them now and pound them out with an impact because you'll break 2 torx bits for every one bolt you'd get out.
There is one screw on this chart that I have a mortal hatred for. Just one. That being the fat Phillips (called "Phillips/square" on this chart meme thing).
I have no idea why, but some companies can't resist the sadistic urge to put tiny versions of these fuckers on equipment that should just use a torque or Phillips screw head. But no, they want you to truly suffer. Because they don't stop there: they make the fragile little fuckers out of NICKEL. Which means they are extra malleable and prone to strip if you so much as look at them the wrong way. So imagine you need to replace a hard drive on a RAID-type storage pool that's already down two spares and you can't fucking get the drive out of it's sled because the vendor not only hired a bodybuilder to tighten the screws, but simultaneously chose the worst possible metal just for giggles and chose the screw head that they no body will have the proper bit for and will inevitably use a normal phillips on until it strips.
I now have a ritual procedure of putting every drive that gets replaced in the coldest cold aisle in the datacenter for at least 5 minutes just to make these fucking screws less likely to ruin my day.
Fuck whoever invented the fat phillips, even the lowest ring of hell is too good for them.
Buddy. I'm not talking about consumer equipment. I'm talking about enterprise equipment that costs more than your car. Step off.
And yes, I know planned obsolescence is a thing in enterprise. But that doesn't mean your enterprise customer won't make purchasing decisions based on the quality of such small components. We refuse to order from HPE, to give you an idea of how we take this sort of thing. We know what we're buying and how to use it and if we can't properly maintain it because the vendor is an asshat, we'll find a new vendor because fuck you we can't afford to put up with your shenanigans.
Every awkward fascist, sexist turtle will be gathered into an imaginary pot and cooked alive for all to see. The aroma and broth will be delectable.
If you have no idea what any of this means and no idea why I don this weird username, then I kindly implore you stay out of it for sake of your own sanity. Otherwise, lmk and I'll begrudgingly curse you with knowledge of the tale of a particularly disgraceful misanthrope and an even worse excuse for a human being.
A lot of those wacky screws exist solely to keep people from randomly messing with them. You have to really go out of your way the get the right tool for the job, and that's if there even is one.
Like the one-way screws holding together bathroom stalls.
Yup, I've noticed that spanner screws (the two dots) are usually found on elevator control panels. There is no reason that somebody should be able to open those up with a Swiss army knife.
Socket (hexagon) and Robinson (square) are hyper common standards. You use Robinson for wood working due to the shape offering more resistance for high speed driving, and you use a socket with an allen key in order to get precise high torque hand tightening. IMO Phillips and Slot are the worst common standards due to stripping and sliding.
I'm American and even i can agree Robertson are the goat.
Phillips and flat suck. Not enough surface area on Phillips, resulting in stripped screws. And getting centered on flat sucks.
Robertson drive, just pop your driver in and it's self centering, lots of surface contact to drive, and lots of meat on the head to prevent stripping. Anything more than 4 edges is unnecessary.
They can take more torque, don't cam out when screwing and most importantly can't be damaged easily by constantly using the screw, unlike Philips which fucks off after second attempt.
I hate slot screws because they are easy to slip out of, and the place that I find them the most is always outlet covers. Like... What the fuck? Why are you gonna put the most easy to slip out of screw next to the most dangerous to slip into hole?!
No thanks. I will stick to my torx and hex, and they better be in metric.
Don't use over or undersized screwdrivers, especially on smaller electronics.
Stop torquing while you are still ahead.
Be especially careful if the metals are soft.
Keep your driver perpendicular. Better drivers can make this easier.
Better to back out the screw and try again if it isn't going in smooth on something threaded. Check for debris and burrs. If you need to apply more pressure, do so carefully.
I have found that for small stuff, getting nicer drivers makes a huge difference.
Penta-lobes for some of the small electronics are funny I guess, but they don't bother me as long as I have a bit for it. Main thing is to understand why some of these different shapes exist.
Ah yes, the head size follows their iso standard for it. The threads, however, can be metric or SAE. You can put a different screw/bolt with whatever head in the same hole, but the threads/diameter can be metric or SAE/imperial.
Flatheads are good for a few specific applications that require the head to have flat contact with the surface but not be tall enough to be something else like a hex or torx, but needing a lot of torque. They suck for everything else.
You obviously haven't ever worked in construction.
T-20
T-25
T-30
Square heads (Robinson) are used by millwork guys (cabinets)
Hex head are also used a lot
Edit: Also the fucking electrical screws that home depot only sells ONE FUCKING SCREW DRIVER FOR and its in a 3 pack of Milwaukee electricians insulated screwdrivers, it's ECX 1 and 2
I actually really like Philips with slot because it's just a Philips with a slot for when the Philips gets stripped so the two on the bottom right corner are the best in my opinion because if one ether the flat head or the Philips gets stripped you can just grab a ratchet or spanner
If you have a quality bit and quality fastener it's quite difficult to cam out a Phillips. The issue is that finding quality bits and fasteners can be difficult and expensive so most people have experience with the homeowner grade which cams out easily without a huge amount of pressure.
Had to unsub and strike him from my feed when he started cheering for the "freedom convoy" donkeys a while back. Revealed himself to be a hopelessly stupid and ignorant bumblefuck in my book. Fuck him.
In Canada, all square screws are called Robinson. If you go into a hardware store and ask for square head screws, the worker will correct you and say "the Robinsons are this way".
They make bad screw heads but the drivers themselves are useful for so many random odd-jobs that you can basically be guaranteed to find a flathead that'll fit your screw within a few seconds of searching near basically any tools
Because of that many cheaper companies use flats for their screws, though I almost never see it in anything bigger than the little ass plugs we use in doorknobs and electrical socket covers. Once you go bigger than those it's usually a Phillips/flat combo, or torx if you're spending some extra cash
Oh god yeah I still use flat screwdrivers on a daily basis, basically as levers
"Little ass plugs" are called "grub screws" btw 😂
In 30 years you'll catch up and they'll all be 2.5mm Allen screws. I do remember them being slotted, it was a massive pain to find a screwdriver that fitted!
I'm seeing a lot of people here claiming that the Philips head was originally designed to cam out/strip to prevent a transfer of force sufficient to twist the head off. While I agree this does sound logically plausible, I could find no reference to such features in the original patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/0f/28/e3/3e3075abbb9779/US2046837.pdf 🤷♂️
Yup. "Cam action" is only mentioned in the context of the wedge shaped driver/bit squishing out any crud that had lodged itself in the screw. The entire idea was self-centering and better engagement between the driver and screw due to the wedging. The fact that it failed more gracefully is a side benefit at most, and more likely just sales fluff to compete against Robertson.
To be fair, I have snapped a few Robertson in my day, certainly higher by percent than the number of Phillips I've used, but that's more than balanced out by the huge number of crappy Phillips heads that have been almost as totally ruined by camming out under fairly normal use with a properly fitted driver.
I submit that every screw in the world should be the six lobe slotted. For the stuff that’s not tamper-resistant, anyway.
You have the six lobe for actually building things, because fuck Phillips head screws, and the slot for convenience where you could use anything from a coin to a knife.
Here in the US, certain brands of deck screws for outdoor use are six lobe and they come with the driver bit in the box because everybody has the damn Phillips and flat head screwdrivers! But to be fair, if you have a bunch of tools you probably also have a set of torx drivers.
All IKEA furniture uses Pozidriv (no “e”, it’s a trademark). Not going to say if that’s good or bad, but operating a Pozidriv with a Phillips is always going to be terrible.
Literally the only people who I hear say negative things about Torx / star bits are people who don't own a good Torx driver set. They don't strip easily (using the correct size) and they don't slip.
if you need to unscrew a torx screw and you don't have any torx bits, you can try using a flathead. it won't work and you'll probably get hurt doing it, but you can try it.
Why though? Do they think a pervert will go and unscrew doors? I'd argue the occupant would notice before it's all unscrewed. Also, kicking it down might just be faster.
Cool concept though, but as person who loves repairing their stuff, I must say f it.
To elaborate: it's in 3d, the s curve is a ramp. The regular screwdriver slots in when turned clockwise, but has no purchase the other way round. It slips out because the ramp lifts the screwdriver out of the screw.
I got a dinky electronics repair kit that included a wide range of those bits and god DAMN. It feels like they outperform phillips heads on phillips fasteners.
Probably. I find a JIS driver is, for the most part, slightly better for a lot of what I do.
The main thing I've found is you dont want too much of a point on the bit end. Too pointy and the driver will just wobble on the point and strip everything out.
JIS is more common on Japanese machines, ie Japanese cars and motorcycles. When I was a bike mechanic you used JIS for Shimano derailleur adjustment screws. Even tho a Phillips "fit" it would destroy the screw.
I actually can't tell them apart from sight truth be told, but I'm also not wrenching anymore (not to mention the cycling industry largely moved on to hex and torx)
Torx and Square/Robertson are superior, Hex/Allen and Phillips are allowed a seat on this council but not granted the rank of master, Posidriv is theoretically Phillips++ but only to the six people in the world that know what it is and own a Posidriv screwdriver, to everyone else it's that goddamn Phillips that keeps camming out. JIS is parallel universe Phillips, it's exactly as reasonably okay as Phillips is for identical reasons, the biggest problem is that they exist alongside and closely resemble Phillips screws. Everything else except slotted is a mental disorder, and slotted was dropped on its head as a child.
Posidrive is very common in the UK. Especially in trades. They are so common screwdriver sets will include posi and slotted with no Philips. Philips is still common in electronics.
Posidrive is much better than Phillips, but just as easy to quickly screw lots of things. Torx and hex take longer to align and have many more sized drive ends. Posidrive has three sizes and 90% of them are number 2. But if you need more torque then they are no good. But at that point you need to switch to a different tool like an impact or wrench.
A washing machine I recently had to repair had three different sizes of torx and it isn't obvious which one till you test fit. Posidrive is easy to identify the size by eye and many different screw diameters share the same posi head. Coupled with self alignment they are just more convenient. I have Robertson bits from multipacks but never needed them.
Phillips has been such a standard for so long in the United States I don't think it's going anywhere, and Pozidriv has made basically no inroads; in fact the only Posidriv screws I own are part of an E3D 3D printer extruder.
I encounter a LOT of Phillips heads, quite a lot of Torx, at least here in America a lot of carpentry screws are starting to standardize on T25 Torx drive. A lot of them include a T25 driver bit in the package, and they are SO much better than Phillips. Drywall screws are still commonly #2 Phillips. Pocket screws (washer headed wood screws) tend to be square drive for whatever reason. Machine screws are either Phillips or Allen. I find a lot of appliances held together with small external hex sheet metal screws, if not Phillips.
I bought a 50 piece bit kit and it came with no less than 8 #2 Phillips drivers.
I agree. The vast majority of people don't know the difference, and have never used a pozidriv driver with a pozidriv screw. It is a vast improvement imo.
Phillips and pozi are actually designed to cam out (look it up on wikipedia). Started using torx a few years ago and I will never go back to pz again, even if it's on the clock and someone else is paying for materials.
Flat head still has it's place IMO, for example on machinery that gets used out in the field where you might need to improvise a driver out of a knife or coin or something.
This man clearly works in the field. Torx is the head to rule them all, except below T15 then it's a pain, and you break more bits than you put in screws.
True. Best to save T15 and below for cleaning the flesh out from under your fingernails after you've finished removing all the pz screws the last guy put in.
The worst one I ever came across was five lobe tamperproof on a Seagate external hdd. Couldn't find any bits for it that didn't have to be imported. Ended with a rather destructive disassembly
My first thought was, "this post brought to you by not mechanics." Otherwise they'd recognize the superiority of hex and torx over Philips and especially flat. But then I realized this is, in fact, a very shit post.
Mostly in construction. Robertson was a Canadian, and you see them a lot in Canada. In the US largely they use Phillips or something that looks like Phillips and a six-lobed star shape.
I like Robertson because the bits are much less fragile, and very inexpensive. They're also much less likely to strip out a screw with a square hole than something that needs little pieces of metal sticking into the bit hole.
Yeah, I've had hex strip before as well. It's always been on the smaller sizes for me though at least. Like sub M3 or 1/8" ish. And of course, cheap hex keys are just asking for it at those sizes. On the other hand, I've definitely never had a torx head strip out on me.
Oh.. I thought this was satirical about gender or something. Not literally saying that those are the two best screws, because NOBODY IN THE WORLD THINKS THAT.
How is the one that conveniently includes both types of slot not the standard for all screws? I'm sure there's an actual reason for it, but I'd prefer to remain incensed.
And I would personally much prefer for everything to be torx rather than Phillips head. Phillips head is designed to let the screw get damaged instead of the screwdriver, whereas torx is designed to reduce the chance of cam-out (and therefore damage to the screw). I'd much rather replace a screwdriver than invent a new way to get out a screw that's been rounded out by repeated cam-outs. Again.
six lobe and it's variants are instruments of the devil, I swear I can't ever get the screw size right for the life of me and get so paranoid about stripping screws.